Mark Richt, UGA players bring hope to cancer-stricken children

Battles on the gridiron are nothing compared to the day-to-day horrors associated with a debilitating disease, a constant fight through peaks and valleys.

For more than a decade, Georgia coach Mark Richt has brought players every summer to Camp Sunshine, a retreat for young cancer patients in Rutledge, Ga., one hour east of Atlanta.

It’s a fulfilling experience for players giving back to the community, but most of all, a brief getaway for the children who are excited to hang out with some of their football heroes.

Standout running back Nick Chubb led a 20-player group on Wednesday who visited with the kids, sharing laughs, signing autographs and even playing dodgeball.

“It’s a great experience,” Chubb told the AJC. “It’s totally different for me to come out here and see these kids, seeing what they’re going through, and to be so strong and have a good time, and not have a care in the world right now. They’re going through one of the worst things ever and are just freely running around, having fun. So it’s really great to see them not really worrying about what they have.”

Some of the highlights from Georgia’s visit to Camp Sunshine this week:

I was there. In the gym (im in the white in the 3rd to last picture). Im so proud to be a cancer survivor and a counselor for those kids. I was telling a 7 year old, “Go! go talk to them! dont be shy!” and he nervously said, “but theyre like my heroes!” ” That’s when I yelled, “NO, you are THEIR heroes! They wanna see you!” These kids never get to feel this way. Its part of the miracle that makes me proud to be a dawg.

And by the way, I talked to Mark Richt about a lot of stuff, but I then asked, “so how do you choose which players come down each year?” and he replied, “well, it’s really simple: they volunteer. They decide if they wanna come down.”